Comments on: Latest resolution statistics and a need to educate our clients!

By: squid

squid — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:23:36 +0000

Aye, ’tis definitely some javascript gubbins then.

By: frog

frog — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:11:40 +0000

@squid who wrote ‘… and, how on earth do you get the message across to your clients tactfully?’

I generally bombard them with stats until I win lol

@squid who wrote ‘And is it possible to design for all resolutions? What sacrifices do you have to make if you do?’

Technically it is possible to design for all resolutions, but the restrictions prevent this from being a viable option. The look, usability and accessibility are just a few considerations you have to consider. If you pick a fixed width of 1024×768 for example, these ‘considerations’ are easier to manage, resulting in a website that is more profitable for the company, encounters less bugs, looks better and making it accessible is by far an easier goal to accomplish. At the end of the day we have the clients best interests at heart and try to deliver their project on time and within budget.

Hope this answers your query.

By: frog

frog — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:02:01 +0000

With thecounter.com, users embed a script on their website so they can track visits etc to their website. Thecounter.com probably has a server-side script like PHP which gathers info from all the websites that have signed up and compiles it’s results based on that. I believe w3schools.com is the market leader in supplying website statistics’ results (or so I’ve been told) and base their results on visits to their website alone. All in all the results are consistent between the two so I believe it’s a reliable source.

By: squid

squid — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:44:15 +0000

… and, how on earth do you get the message across to your clients tactfully?

And is it possible to design for all resolutions? What sacrifices do you have to make if you do?

By: squid

squid — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:42:51 +0000

Are they gathering this data through javascript? Are non-javascript users in the ‘unknown’ category? Does it include Firefox?

By: frog

frog — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:58:51 +0000

A website can be either fixed or fluid (expands in and out). The reason sites like the BBC choose fixed width could possibly be due to accessibility. Imagine a site that fills 1600×1200, the text would span a wide distance meaning each line could have 30 words on it. I believe w3 recommends circa 10 words per line, any more and eye strain could be an issue. I guess whatever the BBC does, follow

Thanks for your comment

By: Piggynap

Piggynap — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:47:55 +0000

The trouble with small resolution sites is they look old and haggard on bigger screens. If your website looks shoddy it gives a bad impression of your business!

Sorry for the possibly stupid question, but do some websites sort of…expand to fill the screen? (variable width??)